<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Narcissus and the Skeleton Flower by Thatkidsyd04</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892297">The Narcissus and the Skeleton Flower</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkidsyd04/pseuds/Thatkidsyd04'>Thatkidsyd04</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stray Kids (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Anorexia, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Eating Disorders, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Han Jisung | Han is Trying His Best, Lee Felix is Bad at Feelings (Stray Kids), M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, everyone is delusional</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:33:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,363</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892297</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkidsyd04/pseuds/Thatkidsyd04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I wish I didn’t really kiss the mirror when I’m all alone”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Han Jisung | Han/Lee Felix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Tale of the Narcissus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I don't remember when it started exactly. But I don't think it matters as I stare into the mirror. Scanning, preening, inspecting, trying not to worry the love of my life as I actively waste away in front of him. He doesn’t like it when I do this, but I just can’t stop. I can’t stop for him. He’ll leave me one of these days, and then what? There would be nothing left of me. And yet somehow it feels like I have everything.</p><p>I try not to catch his eyes when I put on another one of his sweatshirts in the morning. He used to smile at how they engulfed me. Now, he only watches in horror. He always offers me breakfast in the vain hope that I one day acquiesce. I always refuse. And day by day I watch his eyes go from confused to sad to angry to lost. He confronted me once, asking why I was so small and why I refused to eat. I told him, and all he could do was watch in horror as I began to explain to him that while I may die, I simply cannot, do not, and will not care. I may be married to him now, and he may love me. But my disorder is somewhat of a safety net, I could lose it all today, his love, this house, all my money, but I would still have it. He was mortified, saddened and somehow determined to try and fix me. It failed, like it always did. I fell so far deep into myself, even as he was yelling out of anger and concern, it felt like I couldn’t hear him. </p><p>But I don't care, I can't care. I push him out of my mind as I try to look deeper at myself in the mirror scanning over myself meticulously, disapprovingly, "maybe one day I'll fall in" I think to myself. Fall in, away from this restrictive life of physical bodies; through the looking glass I'd find the me that I've been sawing away at my body looking for. He says, "I love you." He offers, trying to make me look away from my reflection "You're the most precious thing in the world to me, Lixie." He doesn't understand, I love him undoubtedly, and I want to see him happy. So, if he loves me and wants me to be happy why can't he understand why I do this? I return the compliment oddly, coldly. "Sungie, you know I know that." I attempt to ignore how deflated he looks when I walk past. I actively ignore his concerned expression every time he hugs me. I choose not to hear when he wakes up in the middle of the night crying about how scared he is. It’s a pity he’s so distraught, but there’s not much I can do. Other than reassure him that I’m right here, laying in bed with him, and that ”I’m<em> not scary. You’re just afraid.”</em></p><p>He just doesn't get why I do this. —I'm searching for my happiness, it might be hiding under the layers of fat.— If only his pleas fell on ears that wanted to hear. He is not worth giving my happiness with myself away.</p><p> </p><p>Am I even happy? I keep telling myself I should be. Maybe if I'm just a little smaller it will hit me like a wave. Collarbones, ribs, a thigh gap, hip bones, tiny waist, small fingers, a pHD, a loving husband, a big house, a stable job; what more could I want?</p><p> </p><p>I don't know.<strike> (Maybe my UGW)</strike></p><p> </p><p>So this morning, like yesterday, and the day before that, I get out of bed and turn my back to my lover, who I know won't leave me because it would hurt me too much.</p><p>-this is the tale of the Narcissus Flower</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Tale of the Skeleton Flower</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I can’t stand to look at him anymore. While we may be married and I love him endlessly. I can no longer sit idly by. But I know my actions have little impact on the sky high castle walls in his brain. Talking to him when he’s like this is like talking to those aforementioned walls. But with that same stubbornness is how we fell in love. <br/>He may have always been like this, but not the way that others think. He was always obsessed with how he looked and would spend hours looking in the mirror, trying to tweak makeup or “fix” acne, all the while leaving scars all over his face. He was always irrational. But I never thought it would get this bad.</p><p>It was about a year into us dating when I finally questioned why he was so obsessive with how he looked. He told me he is anorexic and has body dysmorphia. While I didn’t truly understand what those words meant. It truly broke me to see the hold it had on my lover. No matter what he did or what I said, it felt like he was in a trance and could only see the flaws that didn’t exist. He would yell at me if I told him he was wrong or what he was seeing wasn’t there. With the lack of food in his system he was volatile. <br/><br/></p><p>After months of walking on eggshells, I caved. I let him fall. Yet, that didn’t stop the endless guilt I felt for just letting him waste away like he is. It started small, with his pants being loose and needing new belts. Then, he needed binder clips to keep his sweatpants up. Later, I had to catch him from falling down the stairs when he passed out.  I remember I went away on a business trip for a week and when he came back the way his bones bit into my skin was horrifying. <br/><br/></p><p>But he was always elated to hear concern in my voice when I talked about his body, he never admitted it but the way he would try to keep himself from smiling you’d think I’d just said the funniest joke. <br/><br/></p><p>So now, as I look at him as I do every morning. I wonder if he even notices I’m there  as he goes into his inspection mode. As meticulously as he can, he runs his hands over every protruding bone and savors the books and crannies he’s created through his starvation. His face always looks dissatisfied, though. When he looks like he’s on the verge of tears I have to cut in “I love you” I remind him. “You’re the most precious thing in the world to me.” I genuinely believe that, no matter what we’ve been through. My love for him never wavered. That’s why when we got married and I took his emaciated hands into mine on the alter, all I could do was cry, knowing that while he was mine, he was forever his disorder’s first. And his response cut me deep. He <em>knows </em>I love him, yet he can’t truly love me back while treating himself like this. If the first argument we had about this problem was the supernova, I’ve been living watching a blackhole tear apart my husband and my life. <br/><br/></p><p>Knowing you’re secondary to mental disorder when it comes to your husband’s love is the most damaging I’ve accepted for love. Love that might pass in its sleep. Love that is decomposing as it’s living, at the funeral, what would be left to mourn? Love that is killing <em>him. </em>Killing <em>us.</em></p><p>Yet every morning, when I offer him breakfast he declines as I eat in front of him he looks on uninterested. There are days where I feel like nothing to him. But he’s still everything to me. <br/>With time, I hope (no matter how stupid this hope may be) that there’s at least some part of him that doesn’t want to die. That some part of him can hold on and I can shake this part of my life out. Act like it never happened, to be a perfect and pristine once again. Unmarred by the past 10 years of us being together. <br/>-this is the tale of the Skeleton Flower</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>